SHARIHAN HADWEH

From Helplessness into Hopefulness-A Journey of turning the darkness into light

Sharihan is a young Palestinian woman, in her later thirties, from the town of Beit Jala, and she lives with complete visual disability.

As a teenager, Sharihan experienced a life-changing incident; a sudden gradual loss of vision ending up in a complete vision disability. Such dramatic change was traumatizing to her, shedding its negative impacts on her entire life; Sharihan dropped-out school and chose a life of full solitude for a whole year, during which the psychosocial effects grew worse; she couldn’t accept the new reality: needing someone to guide her even inside the house, or using the stick to find her way, or even enduring the empathy looks from people around her.  

Realizing that there was no escape from the new reality, after one year of hopelessness, the fighter spirit deep inside made her decide to fight the odds; she underwent rehabilitation, learned to use Braille, resumed her education and successfully passed high school. Yet, and most importantly, she decided to employ her talents to draw a new hopeful chapter of her life.

Being introduced to QADER’s talent development track, implemented within the DROSOS-supported project, Sharihan was enrolled in the program and received all needed support to develop her skills and competencies to further refine her talent.

Experiencing disability herself, with all the tremendous impediments preventing persons with disabilities from living their lives like other people, she decided to utilize her talents in acting and stand-up comedy to advocate for the disability cause. With the support from DROSOS, Sharihan conducted her first performance “No Cheri”, produced by Al-Harah Theatre- a national Palestinian theater- and broadcasted in April 2022.

After the outstanding success, she received national and international offers to participate in different shows and performances advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities. Sharihan’s story of determination and success made her the heroes of “human life-changing” stories published by the renowned “Guardian”.

Sharihan learned how to turn darkness into light inspiring many others with similar experiences.